


The Unusual Courtship of Lucius Malfoy

by diabolica



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Lucius Big Bang, POV Lucius Malfoy, Pre-War, Pureblood Society (Harry Potter), Purebloods (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21768715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diabolica/pseuds/diabolica
Summary: In love, as in chess, it can be difficult to fix one’s tactics when one’s opponent is an expert at deploying the element of surprise.
Kudos: 5





	The Unusual Courtship of Lucius Malfoy

I. The Abysmal Decimation of 1970

‘It’s ten or nothing,’ said a female voice.

Lucius stopped short just inside the door to the common room. At this hour, the only person who should be here was his own good self. Having just finished his exceedingly trying rounds with Gryffindor’s unfortunate excuse for a prefect (the Ravenclaw prefect he’d had his eye on had been assigned the grounds with one of the Hufflepuffs), the last thing he wanted was to have to chivvy his own housemates back to their rooms with the threat of detention. 

‘All right. . . . Ten.’

Lucius almost smiled then. The answering voice belonged to Walden Macnair, whose chief redeeming attribute was that he would do anything Lucius told him to do. At least there wouldn’t be another scene. He’d had enough of those tonight.

‘Are you mental?’ squeaked a third voice. ‘You haven’t g—’

Lucius stepped out of the shadows by the door in time to see Macnair elbow Goyle in the ribs, cutting him off. The two of them were sitting by the fire, silhouetted in red, across from none other than—

‘I see,’ said Narcissa Black. ‘So you haven’t even got the ten? Why do I waste my time?’

‘Would someone like to inform me what is going on here?’ Lucius asked.

While Macnair only twitched his head in Lucius’s direction, Goyle practically jumped out of his seat at being caught out after hours in the common room. His body slumped in relief when he saw it was Lucius. ‘Nothing,’ Macnair muttered. He shot a resentful look at Black—who, Lucius noted, had not shown the slightest sign of surprise or alarm at his arrival—and then let his eyes drift down to the chessboard sitting between them.

‘Oh dear,’ said Lucius, unable to hide the relish he felt. ‘You weren’t wagering money on a game, were you?’

‘No,’ Crabbe said at the same time Macnair grumbled, ‘'Course not.’ Black fixed her indolent eyes on his face and said, ‘What if we were?’

‘Well, that would naturally be against school rules. I should hate to have to report my housemates for such an infraction.’ Macnair and Goyle looked suitably cowed, as he knew they would be. Black, on the other hand, laughed.

‘Not to worry, Malfoy. Your friend here hasn’t even got the amount of money he was about to wager. Therefore, there was no infraction. No harm, no foul.’

The unutterable arrogance with which she was treating him made him want to teach her a lesson.

‘Macnair, how much were you about to bet on this game?’

Macnair hesitated, probably wondering how much Lucius had heard. Grudgingly he said, ‘Ten.’

‘Galleons,’ interjected Black, that damnable smile still on her lips.

‘Why, Miss Black, can you afford to lose that amount of money?’

‘I wasn’t planning to lose it.’

He shot a sideways glance at his friends. ‘Then why don’t you bet against me?’

Goyle, that gormless idiot, simply sat with his mouth open like a landed fish. But a sly expression entered Macnair’s eyes at Lucius’s words. ‘Lucius, that wouldn’t be fair now, would it? You’re captain of the chess team.’

Black shook her head. ‘Please, Malfoy. Ten galleons might be a year’s worth of pocket money to these two cretins, if they pooled all their resources. But to you that’s just an average Tuesday’s worth of sweets.’ She leaned forward. ‘If you’re going to bet, then _bet_.’

Was he mistaken, or had there been the slightest pause before she uttered the word, ‘sweets’?

If it were anyone else in his house, Lucius would have ended the charade right here. But if half the rumours that had reached his family were true, the Black family were their only competition in terms of relative wealth. Which meant he needed to make this lesson one that would at least sting the impertinent Miss Black if he wanted her to remember it.

‘Have it your way, then. I’ll play you for fifty,’ Lucius told her. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, ‘Galleons. That is, when I win this game you will give me fifty galleons, and I will decide then if I need to report the incident.’

‘And if I win?’

‘Do I look concerned? Very well. _If_ you win, I won’t report you. And you’ll get the money of course, because a Malfoy always honours his wagers.’ Lucius flicked his wand and the chessboard turned 180 degrees. I’ll even let you play white.’ He sat down. ‘Your move.’

Lucius savoured the moment: Macnair’s raised eyebrows, even Goyle’s fatuous smile. He could feel their admiration rolling off them like the heat of the fire, and he revelled in it. Black’s lips were pinched, and the look on her face as she regarded him and then the board might have looked like concentration if he didn’t know how anxious she must be at this very moment.

‘Lads, you can go now. I doubt Miss Black wants you to witness her defeat.’

Macnair grinned at him as they left the room, giving him a thumbs-up over Goyle’s shoulder. Lucius turned his eyes back to the board, and they began.

It was over in six moves.

Lucius sat, unmoving, unblinking, as the head of his king came to rest at her queen’s feet. 

It wasn’t possible. It _couldn’t_ be possible. He looked up, furious, expecting to see Black punching the air or dancing in her seat—something many other people would have done if they’d managed to beat him at his favourite game. She was doing neither, merely regarding him with one eyebrow arched in a thoroughly maddening and—he had to admit—very fetching manner. He hadn’t lost a match in over a year. He swallowed, a little too hard, and when he scanned the board to reconstruct her tactics, he realised that his confidence in himself (and his absolute assurance that she could never beat him) had made him lazy. He’d opened himself to her like the gates of Troy.

He refused to let his anger show. ‘You play very well, Miss Black. Very well. Was that a Shirov variant?’ he asked, congratulating himself on how calm he sounded.

‘Chelpin,’ she said. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and smiled. That smile, the way it wrinkled her nose, the genuineness of it, chipped away at his irritation. He found himself smiling back, intrigued. ‘It was in a book I read this summer.’

Experienced as he was in competitive chess, he’d never heard of a Chelpin gambit. He’d like to read that book. ‘Why have you never joined the chess team?’ Lucius asked.

In answer she shrugged and shook her head. She lifted her wand, and the black king righted himself and reclaimed his head; the pieces all returned to their usual places. She stood up.

‘Good night, Malfoy. You can give me my winnings in the morning.’ She turned away, raising her hand in what might have been a wave, or a dismissal.

‘I’ll want a rematch, of course,’ he said, wanting to keep her there. Lucius was shocked to realise he wanted her to keep talking to him.

‘I’m sure you will,’ she called back. But she did not turn around. She disappeared through the door to the girls’ dormitories.

Lucius returned to his room to find Macnair and Goyle fast asleep, his victory at the chess match such a foregone conclusion they hadn’t even stayed up to see how it went. He would decide what to tell them in the morning. He opened his school trunk and tapped his wand against the inside of the lid. A tiny black door appeared. He tapped it again and it sprang open. He counted out Black’s winnings, then rummaged around in the main body of the trunk to find a suitable pouch for them. With that done, he summoned an elf.

‘Deliver this to Narcissa Black,’ he told the little creature. ‘Leave it where she will see it first thing when she opens her eyes.’ He moved to hand over the pouch, but at that moment a mad thought occurred to him; it stopped his hand in mid-air and sent him scrabbling in his trunk for a quill and a scrap of parchment. ‘Wait,’ he said, barely aware of the tiny ears flapping up and down as the elf nodded and obeyed. 

He knew what he wanted to say but could think of no sweet or flowery way to say it. In the end he settled for being direct and scribbled out, _Hogsmeade next weekend?_ He blew on the ink to dry it and then folded the parchment and added it to the contents of the pouch. He told the elf, ‘Narcissa Black. Understood?’

The elf nodded and disappeared.

At breakfast the next morning Lucius watched Black for a reaction, but she didn’t even glance at him. The same thing occurred at lunch, and again at supper. She sat further down the table in her usual spot next to her sister Andromeda and their friends, their chatter constant. Between prefect duties and an utterly unsuccessful search through the library for any reference to a Chelpin gambit and how to construct a defence against it, he didn’t return to his room until after supper. A note lay on his bedside table, his initials written on it.

_Don’t be stupid, Malfoy,_ it said. _Why would I go out with someone who can’t even beat me at chess?_

II. The Adventitious Advance of 1971

Revision for NEWTs was in full swing and Lucius could not wait for the entire process to be over. An utter loathing of being forced to educate his less intellectually capable classmates (Goyle, Crabbe) and a complete unwillingness to suffer others' (LeStrange's) pitiful attempts to instruct him meant Lucius was studying on his own as much as possible. The first sunny Saturday of spring had arrived, tempting any reasonable student onto the lawn and, this being the case, Lucius turned his steps towards the library, where he was unlikely to encounter anyone who would distract him from trying to untangle the Gordian knot of his Transfiguration notes from the previous two years. He also needed to speak to Madame Pince about taking out some texts from the Restricted Section, which he would prefer to do discreetly.

So he counted himself supremely unlucky when the first person he encountered as he walked through the library door was Narcissa Sodding Black. She stood at the librarian's desk talking to Madame Pince in low tones, her back to him. Lucius was obliged to wait while Pince dealt with Black's questions, and so he caught the librarian's eye over Black's shoulder and nodded. 

'You don't understand,' said Black, her tone cold. 'I have three feet of parchment due on Monday morning, and The Potioneer's Bestiary is the only book that has any information on the use of Jobberknoll parts in potions.'

'And without a note I can't let you into the Restricted Section, Miss Black.'

'But there's no reason for this book to even be in the Restricted Section! There's nothing remotely dangerous about it.'

Pince was unmoved. 'That's where it's been catalogued. Go and talk to your Professor and come back when you've got a note.'

At this pronouncement, Black let out a groan of frustration, which Lucius knew must have to do with the fact that Professor Slughorn was in Luxembourg this weekend, watching a Quidditch match as the special guest of Florianus Smith, class of ’64, who had left Wimbourne in order to coach the Luxembourg national team. Lucius had been bored witless at the last Slug Club meeting by Slughorn’s recitation of Smith’s many accomplishments and the gratitude and high esteem he of course felt for his dear professor, who had introduced him to … blah, blah, blah. 

Before he'd had a chance to really consider it, Lucius muttered a charm under his breath and stepped forward. He touched Black’s arm.

Black turned round with a small start; she hadn't realised he was there. Her eyes narrowed when she saw him. 

'Miss Black,' he said. 'Pardon me for interrupting, but—'

'Not now, Malfoy. Can you not see I'm in the—'

Lucius produced a sheaf of parchment from his bag. 'It's only that you must have dropped this in the corridor outside. At least, it has your name on it. I wasn't trying to snoop, you understand. I just wanted to make sure it got back to you.'

She took the parchment from his hand, glanced at it briefly and handed it to Madame Pince. Her face betrayed nothing, Lucius noted, impressed despite himself. 'Now,' she said coldly, 'may I check out the book?'

Pince scrutinised the note carefully, then looked between Lucius and Black. Lucius made sure to keep his expression carefully blank. At length she said, 'Certainly.'

'Thank you,' said Black, turning and stalking off to the Restricted Section.

Lucius shrugged apologetically at Madame Pince. He had worked carefully to stay on the woman's good side, particularly during the NEWT revision process when a modicum of charm went a long way to getting the books he needed set aside for him while the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs gnashed their teeth and waited for him to finish with them. He pulled a pair of just such books out of his bag now and returned them to Madame Pince with his sincere thanks and lingered to chat with her a moment as he waited for Black to return. She didn't take long. After a few minutes' searching she handed the book to Pince, who checked it out for her. When she left the library, Lucius followed her.

'I'll need that parchment back, of course,' he said.

She looked up at him, her smile badly suppressed. 'Nice trick, Malfoy. Is that really Slughorn's signature?'

'Oh, to be sure. Bit lazy with the protections he puts on his notes, Professor Slughorn. McGonagall, for example, would never write a note whose text could be altered with a simple spell. Pedantic old battle axe.'

Black's smile escaped the confines of her reserve. She handed the parchment back and watched as Lucius restored the text to its original form.

'Pince has it out for purebloods, have you noticed?' asked Black as they continued towards the common room. 'She's treated my sisters just the same.'

Lucius tilted his head to one side. 'You just have to know how to handle her. Bring her a box of fire liquorice at Christmas and she'll be eating out of your hand. Especially if you want access to the forbidden books.'

With an exasperated huff, Black said, 'Please. The Potioneer's Bestiary is hardly an incendiary text. It's ridiculous the books that end up in the Restricted Section.'

He was beginning to think he had more in common with Narcissa Black than he'd realised. 'I looked up Chelpin, by the way. The gambit you used on me last autumn.'

Her expression regained the careful smoothness she had presented to Madame Pince. 'Oh?'

'Quite the Dark Wizard, wasn't he?’ Lucius continued. ‘I hear Grindelwald used quotes by him in some of his speeches.'

'Really? I've only ever read his chess books.' Lucius couldn't tell if she was dissembling.

‘Lucky you,’ he observed. ‘As far as I can determine, he’s written multiple books on philosophy and politics, but only two texts on chess, both of which are out of print and notoriously difficult to find.’

She stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to face him. 'What do you want, Malfoy?'

'Pardon?'

'It was nice of you to help me out. I do actually need this book for my Potions essay. But let’s be real. You're not the sort to simply hand out favours without expecting something in return.' She folded her arms, regarding him expectantly.

He had fully intended to leverage this encounter to get her to go out with him. Another invitation to Hogsmeade was on the tip of his tongue. But he hesitated long enough to read the suspicion that darkened her expression. Now that it came to it, he didn't like the portrait she was painting of him. He wanted to prove her wrong.

He took a step back, saying, 'Consider it a show of Slytherin solidarity, Black.' He made her an ironic bow. 'Good luck with your essay.'

The common room door was in sight, but he still had business in the library so he turned and began retracing their steps. Then he turned back and said, 'We've not had our rematch, Black.'

She smiled, gesturing towards her book bag. 'I’m a bit busy this weekend. Another time,' she said.

The next morning he found a scrap of parchment in his bag as he was searching for a quill. When he opened it, it read:

_Last I checked, Bleekman’s Antiquarian Booksellers in Edinburgh had a copy of Advanced Tactical Practices in Wizard’s Chess. It’s in their private collection. If you’d like to look at it you’ll have to ask. Nicely. –NB_

III. The Importunate Debacle of 1971

The stairs were spinning beneath him. In itself this was not unusual in a castle like Hogwarts, but no staircase in his experience had ever moved quite so fast. This was the last thought he had before the staircase in question rose up to deliver a shocking blow to his temple.

He awoke in a deserted corridor at what seemed an alarming distance from the staircase he had been trying to descend. Or perhaps it wasn’t the same staircase after all. He wasn’t even sure anymore what part of the castle he had ended up in, and he had almost decided that he’d best sleep here for a bit before trying again to—what had he been doing?

A face swam up before his eyes. It appeared to be a beautiful face—a marvellous dream of a face, in fact—if only it would stop moving so he could check for certain.

‘What in the name of Nimue’s saggy—Malfoy, what are you doing? You’re a _prefect_!’

Hands were clawing at his robes now, and while he was happy to allow this he had a sinking feeling that he was in no condition to live up to her expectations, whatever they might be. The evening was coming back to him in pieces, pieces that made him want to shut his eyes and lose consciousness again.

'For Merlin’s sake, Malfoy, _get up_!'

The marvellous dream of a face had the voice of a harridan. He tried to push her away, but his arms felt like overcooked noodles and she didn’t move at all. ‘Fine then,’ the harridan was saying, and suddenly he was standing, though he didn’t remember doing so and he thought it might not be his own muscles holding him upright. His head fell back and hit the wall. He heard a nasty _thunk_. Fortunately, in his state he felt nothing. Which was exactly the idea.

‘Sorry!’ she was saying. ‘I didn’t mean for that to happen. Just—quickly. Hold your head up, can’t you? Filch will—if he finds you. In here.’

He was stumbling through a doorway into a classroom, or perhaps it was a store room because it smelled strongly of dust. Possibly because he was lying in it. When had he lain down again? There was something hard under his cheek, but it was cool and felt rather nice and he couldn’t be arsed to get up again, so when she hissed at him to _ ‘Just stay here!’_, he made no argument. He closed his eyes and let the blackness take him back down.

Except mere moments later she was back, clawing at him again, forcing him to sit up. ‘Drink this,’ she ordered, and so he drank only to shut her up and make her leave him alone in his misery. Misery needed aloneness, he was thinking, aloneness, not company like that stupid fucking—

‘Black?’

He blinked. The world had resolved into more than blurred shapes. Suddenly everything was sharp again, sharp as axes. Sharp as a pair of pale blue icicle eyes. He blinked against the intrusion, thinking his head ought to be hurting but it didn’t. The spinning, nauseated feeling was gone. But now the pain had surfaced, the pain inside. It was roaring to the forefront of his consciousness and making him wish she’d simply left him on the floor of this room, wherever it was. He could feel a lump forming on the back of his head and there was something on his shirt-front that smelled exactly like sick. He wanted the blackness back. He would take the spinning and the nausea if he could just crawl into a hole and not be seen in this condition by someone like Narcissa Sodding Black.

‘What was that? What did you give me?’ he asked, gesturing to the tiny bottle in her hand. To deflect attention from the scouring spell he was casting over his clothes. His voice sounded harsh to his own ears; his throat felt desert-dry.

She looked down. ‘Sobering Solution.’

‘Sobering Sol—but it had peppermint in it, I could taste it.’ The words were out before he could stop them.

‘Let’s just say it was a home brew.’

‘You have a personal stash of home-brewed Sobering Solution in your school trunk? Miss Black, you astonish me.’

She glared at him. ‘I didn’t brew it, Malfoy, nor do I have a stash. And if this is the thanks I get for saving you from Filch, then I’m sorry I went out of my way to get it for you.’

He sighed, looking for the right words. ‘I’m sorry, all right? That isn’t what I meant. I’ve tasted Sobering Solution, once, and it was foul stuff. That—’ he indicated the empty bottle ‘—actually tasted rather pleasant. That’s what I meant.’ She looked mollified. ‘Where’d you get it?’ he asked.

‘Snape.’

‘Snape the first year?’

‘Second year. Precocious little sod, isn’t he?’

‘He can already brew potions that complex?’

She nodded. ‘He’s got a tidy little side business going. Luckily for you.’

‘Like you with your wagers?’ he asked. She gave him a hard look.

Lucius made a placating gesture, palms out. ‘What did it cost you?’ he asked, thinking that however much the Snape boy had managed to extort from her, he’d have to pay her back. And depending on whether Narcissa had told him who needed the Sobering Solution, Lucius would probably have to give Snape himself a few extra coins to keep quiet. So he wasn’t prepared for her answer.

‘A book.’

‘He wanted a book?’

‘Well, he wants to _borrow_ a book. One that isn’t in the school library.’ She arched an eyebrow and he understood.

‘Dark, then?’

‘Rather.’

He scratched his chin, appreciative. Narcissa Black was full of secrets. ‘A book you have?’

‘One I … have access to,’ she said. Was she blushing? ‘At least I’m fairly sure it’s in my Uncle’s library. He’ll never miss it. I promised to give it to Snape after the Easter hols.’

‘Interesting.’

They sat in silence for a moment in the dark, disused classroom. She didn’t seem to need to talk incessantly like other girls. Lucius was starting to count that as a point in her favour when she said, ‘You must have had some bad news today.’

Lucius turned to stare at her, incensed by her sheer cheek. But how could she know? ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked. Once they were out of his mouth, the words sounded colder than he had intended. 

‘Well, you went utterly white after you opened your post this morning. That usually indicates bad news. Then tonight you went and got sloshed, when normally it’s your watch to make sure no one else does, which sort of confirms it. Doesn’t take an arithmancer to add two and two.’ 

So she had watched him opening his post? Lucius almost made a joke about it, to forestall the feeling that he was about to tell her what had happened. But before he could think of something clever to say she said, ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me what it is.’

‘It’s—’ Lucius stopped. He had been about to say, ‘It’s nothing, really,’ but he knew that for once he couldn’t say it with a straight face, couldn’t say it and mean it.

Lucius felt hollowed out, defeated, and more than anything he wanted back the feeling of numb confusion that had accompanied his fall down that flight of stairs. He wanted anything but the knowledge that his mother was gone.

This morning’s post had carried a message from her. Four words in her loopy schoolgirl hand, words he wished he’d never read. 

‘You’ll understand one day.’

She’d said the same thing to him the summer he was eight. He’d been out swimming all morning with his nanny looking on. They were just returning to the house when he spotted his mother walking down the drive ahead of them and ran to her, ignoring Genevieve’s voice calling his name. He remembered shouting, ‘Mummy!’ How she turned and, instead of the look of delight Lucius expected, frowned when she saw him. Lucius didn’t remember what he’d said then, only that when he looked up he realised two things: First, she was standing very near the gates to the Manor and so his mother must have been on her way out, and second, a man in dark robes was standing beside his mother, someone he didn’t know.

His mother said she had to go, or words to that effect. He thought she must mean she was going to London, to Diagon Alley probably. ‘Can I come with you?’ he asked, thinking he’d like a look in Quality Quidditch Supplies while she was doing her shopping. But she had said, ‘Not right now, darling. I’ll come back for you as soon as I can, all right?’ She looked as if she might cry, which alarmed him. She took his face in her hands and looked right at him. Then she said it: ‘You’ll understand one day.’

Genevieve caught up with them then, and Lucius’s mother must have spoken some hard words to her but Lucius hadn’t heard them. It was like being underwater again, the light at the surface of the lake receding as he sank to the bottom. He felt himself ushered, as children are, back towards the house. He looked over his shoulder and watched as his mother and the man disappeared through the gate. 

She didn’t look back, nor did she return. She didn’t send for Lucius.

Six months later he had come downstairs for breakfast to find her sitting at the table, nibbling a triangle of toast and reviewing the day’s Prophet. His father sat at the opposite end of the table drinking tea and reading through a stack of letters. As if nothing had happened.

When Lucius had opened that letter this morning, he realised that he had been holding his breath every day since then, and now, bizarrely, he could let it out. The other shoe had finally dropped. Given the invective-filled letter from his father that had followed, he was fairly certain his mother was never coming back. But he didn’t know yet how to present this change of circumstances to the outside world, so what he said to Narcissa Black was, ‘I think my parents have split.’

‘Are they divorcing?’ Her voice was concerned, and there was no hint of salacious interest there. This surprised him. He was used to people hunting for gossip about his family.

‘Don’t know,’ he said, truthfully. ‘They might just live apart from now on, I suppose.’

‘Merlin, I wish my parents would divorce.’

‘Really?’ he asked.

‘Really. I’ve never met two people more ill-suited for each other. It’s enough to put a person off the idea of marriage entirely.’

‘Well, one has to marry,’ Lucius said. What other option was there?

‘I don’t see why,’ said Narcissa.

‘Carry on the family name?’ Lucius offered.

Narcissa snorted, a most un-ladylike, un-Slytherin sort of noise. Strangely, it wasn’t at all off-putting. ‘I’ve got cousins to do that,’ she said. ‘And my sister Bella has already married and will probably be populating the world with little Lestranges soon enough. There’s a disturbing thought.’ 

Lucius of course knew Rodolphus Lestrange. The sort of children he was likely to father, and with Bellatrix, well, that thought was enough to give anyone pause. He was considering how to tactfully agree when Narcissa continued, ‘And my sister Andromeda is such a good little girl that she’ll likely marry one of the Flint boys and follow suit. My parents will have all the grandchildren they can stand before I’ve even left school. So why should I bother marrying someone I can’t bear to speak to and making myself as miserable as my parents seem to be with each other? I’d rather just, I don’t know, study Arithmancy and get a cat.’

Lucius laughed at the idea of willowy, fine-featured Narcissa Black living a typical spinster life. ‘You’d be the loveliest cat lady in Britain,’ he said. Then wanted to hex himself into oblivion for being so obvious.

‘Oh stop trying to butter me up, Malfoy. Just because I saved your sorry arse from Filch.’ She grinned at him. ‘Look, it’s the middle of the night. If we’re caught here, Dumbledore might give you a pass for bereavement or something, but I’ll be expelled, so I suggest we get back to the common room tout de suite.’

‘You’re right,’ said Lucius. He paused. ‘Where are we?’

‘Old Divination classroom. I don’t think it’s been used in years. Follow me.’

They didn’t speak in the empty halls leading back to the dungeon. The suits of armour, luckily, remained silent as they passed, and they didn’t encounter Peeves, thank Merlin.

As he shut the common room door behind them, Lucius asked, ‘Why did you come back for me? Why didn’t you just leave me out there?’ He was nothing to her, he knew. They’d hardly spoken since the day he’d doctored Slughorn’s note for her at the library, though he’d sometimes wished that wasn’t the case.

She held up a thumb and forefinger, half an inch apart. ‘We’re this close to taking the House Cup this year. I’ll not have you ruining it because your friends couldn’t be bothered to take you with them when they broke up their party in the Charms corridor.’ She shook her head. ‘And you a prefect, Malfoy. Really.’

That can’t possibly be the reason, Lucius was thinking as she turned away. Her eyes were entirely too gentle when she’d said it.

‘I still want a rematch,’ he called after her.

‘Of course you do,’ she called back.

III. The Propitious Encounter of 1972

Lucius couldn't think of a worse way to start the year.

Having begun the day sometime around noon with a ripping headache, for which he blamed the open bar at the Bulstrodes' the night before, he had quickly downed a phial of Penwick's Panacea before ringing for breakfast, only to be interrupted before he could consume his first mouthful by a diatribe from his father. He had no idea how long that had lasted; it was his habit to simply leave the room, at least in his own mind, whenever Abraxas took it in mind to enumerate Lucius's failures—as a son, as a man, as a Malfoy. The words layabout, shiftless, dissolute, and ‘lacking in useful occupation’ may or may not have been bandied about. (This was a bit rich, Lucius thought, seeing as he had the rest of his life to find something to do with his time, and in the meantime it wasn't as if he ever had to earn a living, so what was the old man on about?)

In the end there had been some slamming of doors, possibly a broken vase or three. Lucius wasn't sure. 

Yet he'd nevertheless found himself at the Rosiers' New Year ball, in spotless black dress robes, smiling tightly beside his father while Abraxas taxed his host’s patience with one of his tedious political discourses. The afternoon after his row with his father was a blank in Lucius’s memory, which was not as troubling as it probably ought to have been, and he was wondering whether there really were poisons the Ministry couldn't detect and where he could get his hands on some.

‘That’s the problem with the Ministry these days,’ Abraxas was saying. ‘No one is willing to take on the Muggle problem—except these so-called _organisations_, which is just another word for hooligans with wands.’

Lucius wished his father would be more discreet. Based on what he’d heard, it was more than possible that the Rosiers were in fact part of the _organisation_ Abraxas was railing against. 

As for Lucius, his only aim for the evening was to get as drunk as possible as quickly as possible. His pursuit of this goal had been interrupted by the appearance of Cecily Rosier, who was supposed to have been in Switzerland, damn it all. She appeared at one end of the room as Lucius had been reaching for his fifth—sixth?—glass of champagne, necessitating a quick exit. (Following a night last summer that Lucius did not quite remember, Miss Rosier seemed to have acquired the belief that she would shortly become Mrs Lucius Malfoy. She hadn’t taken it kindly when Lucius disabused her of the idea.) Considering their history, and the shocking number of violent hexes Cecily seemed to know, Lucius was keen to avoid a meeting. He had opened a door or two, greeted a few people, and then passed through at least one corridor and a third—fourth?—door, whereupon he’d found himself alone in the Rosiers’ library with no real idea how to get back to the party even if he’d wanted to.

The room wasn’t as large as their library in Wiltshire, perhaps two-thirds of the size, but the shelves were taller due to the higher ceiling in this room. A single ladder was positioned on the other side of the library, for the use of younger wizards, presumably, since a decent levitation charm would suffice for most people’s purposes. Knowing the books on the lower shelves were likely to be the least interesting, Lucius cast such a charm where he stood and began perusing the titles on the highest shelves. 

One of the Rosiers at least was clearly interested in the history of English magic, based on the selection here. Lucius was about to move on when his levitation charm slipped, no doubt due to the champagne, and he suddenly dropped three or four feet. He righted himself and the charm held, leaving him hovering at eye level with the middle shelves. Still feeling unaccustomedly unsteady, he looked up and his eye alighted, as if drawn there by a beacon charm, on a familiar title:

Advanced Tactical Practices in Wizard’s Chess by Simonedes Chelpin. 

Between NEWT preparations and the disintegration of his family, Lucius had never managed to visit the bookseller Narcissa Black had recommended. He hadn’t even thought of it, or of Narcissa, in months. He plucked it off the shelf and lowered himself to the ground, landing rather harder than he’d intended.

‘Have you been making merry again, Malfoy?’

The voice startled him, and he looked towards the door, where Narcissa Black herself was standing, quite as if he’d conjured her out of his imagination. Lucius blinked.

'Course not,’ he said, doing his best to keep his voice even. It wouldn't do to let her know how blurry the room had been just moments ago. To avoid any further display of instability on his feet, Lucius set Chelpin down on a small table and seated himself on a handy sofa.

A quirk of her eyebrow suggested that Narcissa had her doubts. She crossed the room, wobbling a little on her high-heeled shoes. She settled herself in a nearby chair.

‘Bit tipsy myself, actually. It’s really the only way to get through these parties when everyone’s only interested in talking politics. Cecily's moved on, by the way,’ Narcissa informed him. ‘In case you were … avoiding her.’

‘Pardon?’ he asked, not wanting to admit that that was precisely what he was doing.

‘As of yesterday, she’s engaged to Aurelius Pucey. So I think you’re safe.’

‘Told you, did she?’

‘Well, yes, I'm afraid. Me and a few hundred others. But knowing Cecily, one has to allow for some exaggeration. She didn't really transfigure your broom into a cockatrice, did she?’

Lucius tilted his head. ‘She may have been trying to do, I don't know. Luckily, she missed.’

Narcissa laughed. Not the girlish laugh he remembered, but more a deep, amused chuckle that made him want to say something funny just to hear her do it again. Lucius felt himself smiling.

When she made no move to leave, Lucius asked, ‘Aren’t you going back to the party?'

‘Oh, Mother sent me to find you. She wants me to pump you for information about your mother.’ Seeing his face she hurriedly added, ‘Don't worry. I wouldn't do anything so crass as to _actually_ pump you for gossip about what your mother is up to these days. It was more a convenient excuse to get away from the noise for a bit.’

‘So what will you tell your mother when she asks what I've said?’

Narcissa waved a dismissive hand. ‘Oh, I'll make something up. She'll believe almost anything.’

Lucius laughed. ‘Well, you can tell her my mother is living in Marseilles with a 25-year-old musician.’ He tried not to sound bitter when he said it.

Narcissa's eyes widened. ‘Really?’

‘No. In fact he's 27, but 25 makes it sound so much more scandalous.’

She laughed again, which made something in Lucius’s chest turn over. Then her eyes softened. ‘It must be hard,’ she said. ‘For you.’

Not wanting to talk about it, Lucius said, ‘No skin off my nose. So, how's NEWT preparations going?’

‘Oh, you know. If Father had his way I wouldn't even be here tonight. I'd be home revising. Fortunately, Mother overruled him.’

‘You don't seem anxious.’

She shook her head. ‘I'm top of my year in Arithmancy and Charms. I'll do all right in Transfiguration, I suppose, and no one ever expected me to be brilliant at Potions. As for the rest?’ She shrugged. ‘So how's post-Hogwarts life treating you, then?’

People had been asking him the same question since he left school last June, and he still hadn’t come up with an answer that most of them would find satisfactory. He said, ‘Same as ever, I suppose. I've been thinking of doing some travelling while I work out what I want to do next. You know, get some excitement.’

‘If it's excitement you want,’ she began, then stopped, regarding him thoughtfully. ‘Has my cousin Evan talked to you? He was looking for you earlier this evening.’

‘Evan the—’ Lucius stopped himself before his champagne-addled tongue could betray him. _Evan the Death Eater?_ It was not a phrase one could use easily in polite conversation, considering the whispered accusations one heard these days. If half the rumours Lucius had heard were true, Evan Rosier was not only a Death Eater; he was _the_ Death Eater, Lord Voldemort’s right hand. Which made him the chief hooligan with a wand in Abraxas Malfoy’s opinion.

‘Evan’s your cousin?’ Lucius finished stupidly. Of course Evan was her cousin; her mother was a Rosier, Lucius remembered.

‘Of course,’ said Narcissa. ‘You and your father are probably the only people here tonight to whom I’m not related. You know how it goes.’

A strange thought had occurred to Lucius. ‘Why does Evan want to talk to me?’

She stood and beckoned him with her hand. ‘Come with me. I’ll let him explain it.’ Lucius hesitated and then, thinking she was his best chance to find his way out of this room, he followed.

Whatever reason Evan Rosier had for wanting to speak with him, Lucius thought, it couldn’t be the one that most immediately occurred to him. Still, wouldn’t that be a laugh? Abraxas Malfoy’s son joins the Death Eaters. The old man would die of poplexia. It might be worth it just to see his face.

In the corridor outside the library the wall sconces cast a silver-blue light that gave Narcissa’s face a ghostly cast. She turned right and began walking.

‘We never had our rematch, you know,’ Lucius said to fill the silence.

‘No, we didn’t, did we?’ 

He waited for her to say more, but she left it at that.

Lucius could hear the clinking of glasses and the pulse of conversation growing louder as they continued down the corridor. He was quite certain he had not come this way before, but then everything about this evening had a disorientating quality about it.

Lucius said, ‘Would you like to? Sometime next week perhaps?’ He’d never felt so wrong-footed with a girl before. Most of the time he found that if he looked at a girl a certain way, she was bound to suggest a time when she’d be available to see him. Narcissa Black seemed to be the exception to everything.

Without answering his question, Narcissa stopped and put her hand out to open a door. The noise of the party was much clearer now, and Lucius knew he’d never have another opportunity like this. He wanted to say something else, but everything he could think of would make him sound foolish. She looked up at him for a moment as if considering something.

‘My mother wants me to marry you.’ Narcissa said this with a small laugh, as if that was the most ludicrous thing she’d heard all evening.

Up to this point Lucius had felt that he was growing used to the surprising things Narcissa seemed to say. ‘I see,’ he said, playing along. ‘So you’re saying I’m a shoo-in.’

‘Oh, Malfoy,’ she said. Her perfectly shaped eyebrows drew together. ‘The first thing you ought to know about me is that if my mother wants me to do something, that’s the last thing I’d willingly do.’

She opened the door, spilling light and commotion into the blue-lit corridor. Looking around, she said, ‘There’s Evan over there. Come on.’

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to TalesofSnape for convincing me to sign up for the 2014 Lucius Big Bang and for reading and commenting so astutely on an early draft. Thanks as well to Toblass for all her efforts in brainstorming plot points and cheering me to the finish line. Pyttan deserves much love for helping me find the way forward when I was utterly stuck. No one could ask for a better support system.


End file.
